They’re not Carl Hagelin, but they come cheaply, they kill penalties and they can skate.
That is why Rangers GM Jeff Gorton took fliers Friday on ex-Islander speedster Michael Grabner and undersized forward Nathan Gerbe two hours after free agency opened.
Gorton signed Grabner, 28, to a two-year, $3.2 million contract ($1.6 million per season) and Gerbe, 28, to a one-year, $650,000 deal. Both players come in at major discounts off their previous contracts.
Grabner essentially is the Rangers’ latest attempt at replacing the speed and penalty killing of Carl Hagelin, who helped lead the Penguins to a Stanley Cup this June after the Blueshirts traded him to Anaheim for salary cap reasons one year ago and the struggling Ducks flipped him to Pittsburgh in the winter.
The Rangers’ typically formidable penalty kill plummeted in Hagelin’s absence to 26th out of the league’s 30 teams this past season at a 78.2% efficiency rating. A down year for the Ranger defense and top killing center Dominic Moore – an unrestricted free agent not expected to return – didn’t help either.
Grabner most recently played on a $3 million annual cap hit for the Toronto Maple Leafs, where this past season he ranked sixth in the NHL in shorthanded ice time (248:29) and second among all league forwards behind only Detroit’s Luke Glendening (254:25).
The left-handed Austrian scored 34 goals in his first full NHL season for the Islanders in 2010-11 but has dipped in production to a total of nine goals and 18 points in 80 games for the Leafs last season. The 6-1, 185-pounder has 104 goals and 173 points in 397 career NHL games.
Gerbe, listed at just 5-5, 178 pounds, has 58 goals and 138 points in 394 career NHL regular season games split between Buffalo and Carolina across eight seasons. He has scored a career-high 16 goals and posted a career-high 31 points twice in his career, in 2010-11 for the Sabres and in 2013 for the Hurricanes.
But both were his first full seasons with each team, and Gerbe is coming off a bad year in Carolina. That is why the Rangers are getting him at a discount from his previous $1.75 million annual salary.
It’s similar to how the Blueshirts signed Viktor Stalberg last summer to a last-chance, one-year, $1.1 million after he spent part of the previous season with Nashville’s AHL franchise.
On Friday, though, the Rangers chose Grabner and Gerbe over re-signing Stalberg, who wasn’t bad in the first penalty-killing role of his career last season in New York. Stalberg instead inked a one-year, $1.5 million deal with the Carolina Hurricanes.
As it was, Rangers fans expecting a major splash trade from Gorton appeared destined to be severely disappointed: St. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong even said on NHL Network that defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk essentially is off the trade market now. He said “our goal will be to try and get Kevin signed if we can” and talked about him continuing as a player for the Blues next season.
The Rangers, therefore, remained minor players in the NHL’s market this offseason to date.
Gorton, who traded a 2017 fourth-round pick for Colorado Avalanche depth defenseman Nick Holden, 28, on Friday also signed minor-league, right-handed defenseman Adam Clendening, 23, to a two-way contract worth $600,000 in the NHL and $300,000 in the AHL.
Clendening, though, has played on four teams in the last two years and has just 50 total games of NHL experience, including 20 with the Edmonton Oilers last season.
Rangers free agent center Eric Staal, meanwhile, signed a three-year, $10.5 million deal with the Minnesota Wild after he waived his no-move clause in Carolina at this past spring’s trade deadline to come to New York, only to be buried on a depth wing and misused by the Blueshirts down the stretch despite his preference of playing center.
Gorton traded second-round picks in 2016 and 2017 and Finnish center prospect Aleksi Saarela to acquire Staal. The trade did not have the desired effect. The Rangers’ season went up in flames.
But so far, hours into free agency, the team doesn’t look a whole lot different.
